Two days ago, Bob Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And once again we saw the tendency of American liberals to misunderstand a man who has refused to be enlisted in their causes.
President Obama remarked that “No one ever picks up a guitar, or fights a disease, or starts a movement, thinking: ‘You know what? If I keep this up, in 2012 I could get a medal in the White House from a guy named Barack Obama. That wasn’t in the plan. But that’s exactly what makes this award so special.”
Setting aside the odd narcissism of the president’s comment, we see in it yet another instance of liberalism’s long history of misunderstanding Bob Dylan.
Dylan’s work is not about the story of American liberalism. It is not about the Antiwar movement, Civil Rights, or—contra President Obama—the wonder of a black man leading a nation that has long struggled with race, worthy as all these things are. It is about man simpliciter and, often, about man standing before his God.
Stephen Webb recounts an episode in his August 2006 review of Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews where Dylan shows how little patience he has for the politics of race. After accepting an award from a civil-rights group, Dylan becomes uncomfortable:
He understood that liberalism color-codes the social grid rather than turning a blind eye to skin color altogether. “Those people that night were actually getting me to look at colored people as colored people. I tell you, I’m never going to have anything to do with any political organization again in my life.” And he didn’t.
Dylan also soon began to refuse the anti-war label:
Dylan mentions a painter he knows who is for the war. They ask why he doesn’t argue with him. “I can see what goes on in his paintings, and why should I?” They press him, because they just cannot fathom that Dylan does not share their political views. Dylan finally backs away by saying, “Well, there’s nothing for us to talk about really.” After one last effort to make Dylan fit their preconception of him, Dylan states, “People just have their own views. Anyway, how do you know I’m not, as you say, for the war?” They leave this question unanswered.
And, as Sean Curnyn explains in his 2004 review of Bob Dylan’s Vision of Sin, secular fans typically have been befuddled by Dylan’s religiosity:
In October 1985, Bob Dylan was interviewed on television, and among the questions posed was this: “There have been times when born-again Christianity, orthodox Judaism, both of those were important to you? Or is it a broader thing for you?” (Broader, you see; not narrow Judaism or cramped Christianity.) Dylan replied courteously, “No. I want to figure out what’s happening, you know, so I did look into it all.” The journalist probed for a reason for this narrowness of belief. “Did it make life easier?” he asked with some sympathy. Dylan responded, “Not necessarily.”
I also recommend Curnyn’s “On the Square” piece describing the time Bob Dylan shared a stage with John Paul II (much to the consternation of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger). Curnyn, who is known for his useful site “Rightwing Bob,” now regularly writes on Dylan matters at The Cinch Review.
May 31st, 2012 | 11:46 am
But he had cool sunglasses in the White House. That’s all that matters.
May 31st, 2012 | 12:00 pm
Yes, that was quite disrespectful.
May 31st, 2012 | 12:02 pm
Great observation, Matthew. The discomfort Dylan showed at the award ceremony befuddled so many commentators, as well as his decision to wear the dark sunglasses. Who can know what he was thinking, but your observations seem far more in line with the possibilities of understanding his behavior. President Obama had to call him to the podium and he looked as much at ease there then he may have looked all those year ago in front of the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee when he received the Tom Paine Award. The sunglasses seemed to say at least to this one observer that if you want to think his life stopped in 1966, then he’ll wear the glasses again.
One of the challenges for commentators – on the right or left – is to discipline oneself from seeing Bob Dylan as a political figure and define him in political terms (as even President Obama did). Joan Baez must have just been steaming in the sidelines somewhere – she knows as well as anyone that politics is not what Bob Dylan is about.
Another challenge is the fact that today’s intelligentsia is they appear to most often be plainly biblically illiterate. Again, the temptation is to see Dylan in religious terms, but that too is to project our own religious politics on to him as well, as to some great cause and that doesn’t seem to work either.
Your observation then I think is correct – he returns, he is constantly returning to ‘first things.’ From his music influences to his compositions in recent years – think of Highlands and Ain’t Talkin or Workingman Blue’s #2. These are the anthems for today and I wonder how many of them are indeed imbedded in our iPods. If they are not, they should be.
Thanks for writing.
Mary
May 31st, 2012 | 12:21 pm
I thought the sunglasses were kind of a rude move. But then, they did protect him if he chose to role his eyes as far back in his head as he may have wished.
May 31st, 2012 | 12:53 pm
“Ain’t no altars on this long and lonesome road.”
May 31st, 2012 | 2:40 pm
Excellent commentary, and very perceptive observation. Although Bob — in my opinion, the greatest artist of our time — does not fit the simplistic generalizations of our time, people continue to try to place him where they think he fits. All the while, Bob Dylan just continues to be Bob Dylan.
May 31st, 2012 | 2:45 pm
[...] by American liberalsMay 31, 2012 By francisbeckwith Leave a CommentSo says Matthew Schmitz at First Things: Two days ago, Bob Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And once again we saw the [...]
May 31st, 2012 | 3:27 pm
“He’s a great humanitarian, he’s a great philanthropist/He knows just where to touch you, honey, and how you like to be kissed/He’ll put both his arms around you/You can feel the tender touch of the beast/You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace” (Dylan, “Man of Peace”)
May 31st, 2012 | 3:33 pm
Why set aside the odd narcissism of the President’s comment? His narcissism is a constant element in his public conduct, and merits our attention. The man is pathological; he exhibits a level of infantile narcissism unprecedented in the Presidency. If that’s not a reasonable basis for voting him out (let alone impeachment), I don’t know what is.
May 31st, 2012 | 10:45 pm
“They say that patriotism is the last refuge
to which a scoundrel clings.
Steal a little and they throw you in jail,
Stale a lot and they make you king.”
~ Bob Dylan
“Oh jokerman, you know what he wants.
Oh jokerman, you don’t show any response”
~ Bob Dylan
Perhaps the later quote says something about the man behind the sunglasses. No one who tries to explain Dylan or fit him into their own box can ever nail him down. He is a slippery poet who can conjure up in song what any number if people are feeling but can’t quite express it.
June 3rd, 2012 | 2:39 pm
Great commentary Mr. Schmitz. As a “child of the 60′s” it took me a long time to realize that Bob was really “a song and dance man” as he said in the famous San Francico press conference. We all tried to label him after our own preconceptons, and read our politics into his songs. My awakening was the three religious albums, when I realized he always follows his own path and did not really give a hoot what I, or anyone else, want him to believe. It would appear that Obama has not yet realized this.
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